One of the companies making GPS navigators for cars used to advertise lifetime map updates. Small print: lifetime of the device, two years after release

https://imgur.com/gallery/edI8Zjc

Sadly your average person just doesn’t care about consumer rights, in any matter.

I learned my lesson about malicious DRM when Starforce broke my new computer’s DVD drive back in the day. Fortunately it was still under warranty so I had it fixed, but sucked all the same.

EU is at least trying to do something about that. As of last year stores are required to display the cheapest price they’ve had for an item in the past three months when they have something on sale. Not all stores comply, and of course they try to get around these by the usual shenanigans, like basically the same product being available from the manufacturer with two slightly different item codes.

Edit: I think I was mistaken, and it’s 30 days, not 3 months

Here, let me adjust your sarcasm detector

When I last moved, I fit my six person dining room set in my VW Passat at the same time. The table was partially disassembled, all the chairs were whole. Pretty sure there was other stuff in the car at the time too. Regular people don’t need these giant pickups.

This is pretty close to how it works here in Finland, although I’m not sure if it’s based on national or EU legislation. The cost of recycling is baked into the price of any electronics, and as a rule of thumb, you can drop off any small devices to be recycles at stores that sell appliances. When it comes to bigger appliances, the stores only need to take your old one if you’re buying a new one. You can of course also bring them to municipal recycling centers.